Firsts and Failures
by amandajbruce
Summary: Murphy's Law: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, just when you least expect it.


**A/N: I bring you guys this oneshot in honor of Valentine's Day since its the holiday of love and all that. Because you know you want to know the story behind the first date. Did you guys really think I would accept Lilly and Oliver getting together and then not show you a first date? You all should know me better than that. I like to take the random one liners and create whole stories for them. It's kind of my hobby. Ha. Here you go, it's the first date straight from hell... or is it? Also, I apologize that it somehow ended up so long.  
**

Firsts and Failures

_"So where'd ya'll go on your first date?"_

_"I took her to the movies."_

_"We went ice skating!"_

The first date was supposed to be awkward. It was supposed to be part of that whole "getting to know you" phase of a relationship. It was the night when the two people tried to impress one another, make the other person like them, telling little white lies throughout the night while still trying to slip in some truth. Not tonight though. The first date was also supposed to be tense. There was supposed to be this feeling that at any second it could actually turn out to be your last date. (Hence the white lies and attempts to impress.) There was also a tension from the whole "will they or won't they" aspect. Just how well will this date go? First base? Maybe, if you're lucky. This first date was more awkward and tense then most. Even though there was no "getting to know you" phase to go through. And even though there was no way this would be the last. And first base? Well, that wasn't really an issue. Not when that base had already been rounded before the date was even set. The problem was, Murphy's Law was being enacted in full force.

Pulling at the material self consciously, Lilly checked herself over in the mirror to make sure she looked alright. She felt like the long sleeved tee shirt she was wearing had shrunk two sizes. It was her favorite shirt. Her lucky shirt. Nothing fancy. More like an old friend you could turn to for comfort when your nerves were getting the best of you. The kind of shirt you wore for a big test, a speech, a casual first date. A plain black tee shirt with sleeves that reached past her wrists. Sleeves she could grab on to and ball up in her fists if she felt nervous, if she felt the need to hide a small part of herself away until she felt confident again. The sleeves were still long enough, but the material was clinging to her chest and her sides, emphasizing curves she didn't really pay attention to on a regular day. But this wasn't a regular day. And she was nervous. She smoothed the soft fabric against her abdomen, wiping away imaginary wrinkles, her finger tips coming to rest on the denim of her jeans, palms smoothing over her hips shakily. Swallowing that nervous energy with a few deep breaths, Lilly turned and exited her bedroom, almost skipping down the stairs.

"Bye, Mom!"

"Hang on, where are you going?" Heather Truscott's head looked up over the back of the couch where she was currently seated with a few file folders spread out on the table in front of her.

"I'm hanging out with Oliver," Lilly responded, trying to make her tone sound offhand, casual, normal, anything other than what she was feeling. She grabbed her keys from a table near the door as she spoke, then settled her hand on the door knob adding, "I'll be home later."

"It's a school night," Heather reminded her.

"I won't stay out too late."

She turned the knob and stepped out onto the porch before her mom could say anything else, like ask if her schoolwork was finished, or tell her she couldn't go, or wonder what she was doing for dinner, or heaven forbid, start questioning her about Oliver yet again. As Lilly walked, crossing the lawn and the driveway on her way to the house next door, she tossed her keys in the small bag she was carrying. Oliver was just walking out his front door.

"Hey, I was just coming to get you," he called to her, a nervous smile on his face as well.

"Yeah, I thought I'd save you the long trip to pick me up," she teased him, sounding more confident than she felt.

He took the steps down from the front porch at a jog and was in front of her before she could think of anything else to say. Lilly bit her bottom lip, glancing up at him, then down at the ground.

Oliver shot a swift glance over his shoulder, only to find his dad watching him from the living room window. He sighed and asked, "You ready to get out of here?"

"Definitely."

He opened the passenger side door to his dad's car for her, and Lilly settled easily in her seat. This wasn't that weird. She didn't have to be nervous. This was just like any other time they hung out. Except it wasn't. It was all... official. And not regular hanging out. Not at all.

When Oliver got in, she asked, "so, you never told me where we're going."

"It's a surprise."

The key turned, the engine started, and the car backed out of the driveway. Yep. It was official. Starting now. Six fifty-three. At least, that's what the clock on the dash board read. Lilly had a sneaking suspicion it was slow since Oliver always seemed to be late when he borrowed his dad's car, but she wasn't wearing a watch, and even if she was, looking at it just as they left the house might seem a little strange.

"But, I could be surprised right now," she needled, wanting to know what to expect. "You told me to make sure I wore warm clothes. That's it."

"And socks," Oliver reminded her, grinning.

"And socks, right. We're not going hiking or anything, are we?" She scrunched her nose up as she asked the question, one of her hands absentmindedly searching through her bag.

"Can you imagine me taking you hiking? At night?" He switched on his turn signal, spinning the steering wheel as he looked to the left.

"Well, the sun won't go down for a little while still... Okay, no hiking." Her hand continued to rifle through the objects in her bag. Keys. Phone. Wallet. Safety siren. Whoops. She hadn't actually meant to bring that. Mirror. Mints. Pen. Where was it? "Umm... bowling?"

"You wouldn't have to dress warm for bowling." He made another turn.

"Right. I was focused on the socks."

"What are you looking for?" He turned his head to watch her as her hand flicked through the bag's contents yet again.

"Chap stick," Lilly sighed. "I figure if I need to be warm, I should need that too."

"I think you'll be safe without it," he chuckled. "Besides, it's in my room."

Lilly dropped the bag in her lap in surprise, now turning to face him as his eyes went back to the road. "You think I only have one thing of chap stick?"

"Yes." He nodded his head as they sped through a yellow light, which Lilly was sure his mother would have frowned upon. "You have about fifty lip sticks and lip glosses, but you only have one chap stick." The grin was still on his face and he tapped his fingers restlessly on the wheel as they came to a stop at the next intersection.

"That can't be right." She stared at him.

"I've only ever seen you use the one kind." Oliver shrugged, and Lilly was again reassured that there would be no messy "getting to know you" conversations to get through tonight.

"Huh." She thought about it for a second, her eyes still on him. "You might be right."

"Of course I'm right," Oliver joked, leaning his head back in the seat, his gaze catching hers.

"Yeah, I guess you're allowed to be right once."

"Just once?"

"Mm hmm."

She nodded her head earnestly, and some of her hair fell across her shoulders and into her line of sight. She had let it go tonight. No straightening. No curling. No products. Nothing. Just a hairbrush through it before she left. She wondered if that might have been a mistake. But then Oliver reached forward, tucking the strands back for her, and she knew it had been the right call. He leaned closer to her, and her heart pounded just like that night on the beach when they finally told each other everything, but he had to pull back when the car behind them let out a long beeeeep! from its horn, the driver yelling that the light was green. Lilly giggled and Oliver put his foot on the gas.

"I should probably focus on the driving. You're so distracting," Oliver muttered jokingly, only making Lilly laugh harder.

When they pulled into a parking lot a while later, it wasn't because the car had reached its destination, but because there were flashing red and blue lights behind them.

"There's no chance of that being your mom, checking on you, is there?" Lilly whispered, remembering Miley having to spend a few hours in jail after the fiasco of her speeding with a Hannah Montana driver's license.

"I doubt it." He stretched a hand across her legs, opening up the glove compartment, and rifling through the papers inside until he found the registration. "She doesn't have a patrol car anymore, not since she made detective. She has an unmarked car."

"Right." Lilly sat perfectly still, watching as Oliver reached into his back pocket, producing his wallet, and rolled down his window.

"Good evening, officer," he said pleasantly as a person in uniform approached the car. "Nice night, isn't it?"

"Don't try to sweet talk me," came a feminine voice from the other side of the door. "License and registration, Oken."

"Got 'em all ready for you." Oliver handed them over as the woman bent down to look in the window. "Mrs. Schwartz?"

"You two know each other?" Lilly deadpanned from the passenger seat.

Oliver turned his head to her, gesturing over his shoulder. "Her husband's my mom's partner."

"Great," Lilly whispered, knowing that meant Oliver was likely to not be allowed to drive for at least the next week, possibly the next month.

"Oliver, do you know how fast you were going?" Officer Schwartz asked him, her tone not entirely friendly, but not altogether unfriendly either.

"Too fast, I know. I'm sorry. It won't happen again." He leaned one of his arms on the door. "I was just, uh, in a hurry."

"Where you kids headed?" She was jotting notes on the pad in her hand as she made conversation.

"I can't tell you."

"You can't tell me?" She shot him a look of disbelief before she went back to writing.

"It's just that it's a surprise, so if I tell you, Lilly'll hear me, and then it won't be a surprise anymore." Oliver's look was apologetic and Officer Schwartz smiled indulgently.

"Date?"

"Ummm... if I say yes, will you not tell my mom that part of the conversation?"

"I'll take that as a yes. And I won't tell her. I'll even give you a break. I said you were going a little slower than you were, so the ticket won't be as high, and I won't put the paperwork through until the very end of my shift so you can finish your date."

"Thank you! I'll make sure you get extra jerky the next time my mom makes it!" Oliver took the papers and his license back from her, smiling widely now.

"I'll hold you to that. Just... no more speeding okay?"

"Got it."

Officer Schwartz walked back to her car and Oliver breathed a sigh of relief, leaning his head back in the seat. Lilly pulled the registration from his hand and slid it back inside the glove compartment.

"You are so lucky, you know that?" she asked him.

"Lucky? I'll be lucky if my parents let me use one of their cars again for the next year."

"Yes, true, but, anyone else and you would have gotten twice the fine." She was eying the paper in his hands now. "I'll pay half."

"No, you won't." His eyes snapped to her.

"Oliver, if you weren't taking me out to... where ever we're going... this wouldn't have happened."

"No, this wouldn't have happened if I wasn't driving too fast on a street that always has speed traps." He folded the ticket up and put it in his wallet along with his license, shifting his hips away from the seat to put it back in his pocket.

"Oliver, come on."

"Lils, I'm not fighting with you about this. You're not paying. Not for anything tonight." His eyes may have been soft, but his jaw was set.

"But-"

"I asked you. I'm paying. My responsibility."

Lilly sighed, but she could tell he had his mind made up, and she didn't want to spoil the night by arguing about paying for a speeding ticket. "Fine."

"Good."

The two of them simply sat there for a minute, long after Officer Schwartz had pulled away in her cruiser, and Lilly started to get a little uncomfortable, her face heating up as Oliver kept looking at her. She didn't know if she would ever get used to him just watching her.

"What?" she finally asked him.

"I was just thinking," Oliver told her, smirking at her raised eyebrows, "Actually, I am pretty lucky. I might not have a car forever, but my girlfriend lives right next door, so I don't really have to go anywhere."

"Girlfriend? That is lucky," Lilly agreed in a low voice, the corners of her mouth turning up. Neither of them had ever actually called one another anything like that before. This was only their first date, after all. But she liked the way it sounded when the word came from him.

Oliver's gaze flicked down when she bit her lip, and he cleared his throat, tearing his eyes away from her to put the car in drive.

"We're almost there, so we should, uh, go."

She swallowed a giggle as he pulled out of the lot, and turned to look out the window, trying to figure out just where they were going.

A few minutes later, they pulled into another parking lot, one for a very familiar building, but one she hadn't been to since the game of hockey she'd played with Joanie over a year ago.

"Are we playing hockey?" Lilly asked him, confusion lacing her voice.

"Ha. No, we are not playing hockey. Tonight is not a hockey night. They have the rink open for skating." Oliver put the car in park, a nervous smile on his face as he spoke.

"We're going ice skating?"

"Yeah... unless you don't want to." The words came out in a rush.

"Oliver, this is perfect!" She hurriedly took her seatbelt off and jumped out of the car. She hadn't been ice skating, not really ice skating anyway, since she was little. She'd played hockey a few times over the last couple of years, but that was a completely different kind of skating. Thicker blade, more speed, no finesse. Oh, god. What if she fell? It had been a really long time, hadn't it?

Oliver followed her from the car, and she felt a little bit of her apprehension return, but she fought it off, hesitating for just a second before she took his hand in hers, lacing their fingers together and walking toward the entrance. When they got inside the building, she glanced around, keeping her eyes peeled for people they knew. The rink was full of families and younger kids, there was even a birthday party going on in one corner, and there were a few adults doing laps, but she didn't see anyone around their age. Good. Not that she didn't want to be seen out with Oliver or anything like that. She just didn't want Miley finding out about them from someone else, before they had a chance to think of a way to break it to her gently. Oliver pulled her in the direction of the sales counter, and they waited in line to rent their pairs of ice skates.

"So..." Oliver started.

"So," Lilly echoed, turning to face him, figuring he would tell her when they needed to move forward in line.

"Do you still have the same rules for first dates?"

She cocked her head to the side, not sure what Oliver was referring to.

"You know, you told me you never kiss someone on the first date. Second date is where you make your decision." He raised his eyebrows at her a couple of times before smiling.

"Right," Lilly pretended to think about the question for a minute as heat crept across her skin, "I don't know. I mean, I've never really been in this situation before."

"You mean the one where you're dating your best friend?"

"No, the one where I've already kissed him... and where I know he'll be asking me out again," she teased.

"You're that sure, huh?" Oliver joked, the grip he had on her hand tightening a little to pull her closer to him.

"Oh, yeah. This guy really likes me. He already called me his girlfriend, you know. Besides, he's been putting up with me for twelve years, and I haven't scared him off yet." The closer she got to him, the faster her pulse pounded and the more the heat intensified.

"Hmm... he must be crazy." Oliver's voice lowered, his head moving closer to hers.

"Absolutely," Lilly agreed, standing on her toes. "Insane."

"Next!"

"I think that's us," he whispered.

"It wouldn't surprise me."

The guy behind the counter didn't look annoyed, just amused, and he waved off Oliver's money, saying, "you pay when you bring the skates back, but we keep your shoes as collateral."

The two of them obediently removed their shoes as he went to retrieve skates in their sizes. It didn't take him long to return, handing Lilly a pair of white women's skates in a size six.

"Um, I wear a five and a half," she reminded him.

"We're all out, this is the closest size we've got."

"Oh, okay." She fingered the laces on the skates in thought, then recalled how uncomfortable roller skates usually were at the rink, even if you did get them in the right size. It was probably better to go a half size up anyway with these. "Thanks." She took the skates from the counter, and followed Oliver to a bench.

After an hour of skating aimlessly around the ice, talking about anything and everything, sometimes holding hands, sometimes not, during which Oliver tripped over his skates about four times, and Lilly's loose ones tripped her up even more, they decided to take a break, head over to the snack bar. Sitting at a table with their food between them, Lilly's purse began to vibrate on the table top.

"I think someone's calling you."

She rolled her eyes as she told him, "I doubt it. It's probably Miley. Every few hours I get a status update on Chace Crawford. Did you know he had a salad for lunch yesterday? And he filmed a shirtless scene last night. And he's so polite, even to the guy that holds the fans up."

"There's a guy that holds the fans?" Oliver asked, grabbing a fry from the basket in front of her.

"There's someone to do everything. They never have to do anything for themselves." Lilly took an exaggerated sip from her soda and pulled the phone out. "Yep. They're having a big cast dinner tonight, and she hopes she gets to sit with him." She let the phone slide across the table so he could see it, and gave another eye roll.

"This Chace guy, he's on that New York show with the rich kids at the fancy school?" he pushed the cell phone back to her as he spoke, not meeting her eyes.

"Yeah, why?"

"Isn't he the one you thought was so cute?" Again he didn't meet her eyes, just played with a fry.

She sat back in her seat, tossing her hair over her shoulder, feeling a smirk settle across her features. "He's okay, I guess, if you like that sort of look."

"What kind of look?" Oliver mumbled, his gaze still trained on the potatoes.

"Oh, you know, that all American pretty boy thing." Her smile widened when Oliver didn't respond. "He's not really my type though."

Oliver nodded his head, finally looking up at her, before he leaned back in his seat as well. When he saw the smile on her face, he grinned sheepishly. "What? I had to ask."

"You don't have to worry about someone like him."

"Worried? Who said I was worried?" He gave his best indifferent shrug before standing and grabbing their tray to dispose of the food, only to turn around and run right into a kid at about waist level who was carrying a full plate of nachos. The nachos ended up all over the floor and the cheese all over the front of Oliver's shirt.

Lilly clapped her hands over her mouth, trying to hold in the laughter and asked, "are you okay?" through her fingers.

"They use really hot cheese here," Oliver hissed and he limped away to attempt to clean the orange gunk from the cotton fabric across his stomach.

When he emerged from the men's restroom, the front of his shirt was dark and damp where he had tried to rinse the cheese away. Lilly could see the frustration on his face, so she didn't laugh as he walked up to her, just asked, "do you want to go?" She knew the old Oliver, the Oliver from when they were eleven, probably wouldn't have cared one way or another about cheese on his tee shirt, but the Oliver that was sixteen and on a date, he would care.

"No. I mean, not unless you want to." He waited, his eyes flicking to her every so often before looking away. It was like he was afraid to meet her gaze.

"At least it doesn't look like the shirt'll stain," Lilly said cheerfully, closing the distance between them and fingering the material experimentally. "You did a pretty good job getting it out."

"Yeah?" The smile from earlier returned to his face.

"Yeah." She gave him an answering smile of her own before leaning forward and mock whispering, "but you do still smell like cheese."

Oliver groaned in exasperation.

"Hey," Lilly comforted him, "I like nachos."

They went to retrieve their skates again for another round of ice. Lilly still ended up with that pair of size sixes that were too big, and she slid one too many times, giggling at first, but then admitting defeat when her hips were starting to get sore from slamming into the ice and her ankles were getting tender from moving around in skates that were too loose.

Oliver hauled her to her feet again, saying, "I think we're going to have to call it a night, Lils. I don't want to be calling your mom telling her I let you break your ankle."

"Okay, okay," Lilly agreed. She didn't want the night to end, and she had plenty of time before curfew, at least she thought she did, but decided it was best to make sure before she talked him out of taking her home. After unlacing her skates and getting back into line to return them, she started leafing through her bag for her phone. "Oliver, do you remember the last time I had my phone?"

"During the nacho cheese explosion, why?" He placed their skates on the counter top and waited for the guy who had just taken over the desk to retrieve their sneakers from the oh, so complicated system of divided cubby holes.

"I can't find it..." Lilly continued flicking through her belongings, going through the same checklist as she had in the car earlier in the night, but coming up without a phone every time. She felt her back pockets, making sure she hadn't slipped it into one of them and forgot about it, but there was nothing there either.

"Here, hang on." Oliver pulled out his own phone, dialing her number, but no ring was heard coming from Lilly's person or her bag.

"Crap," she moaned.

"Don't worry, we'll look for it after we get our shoes back," Oliver reassured her.

But when the guy placed shoes on the counter, there was something wrong. Oliver's sneakers were there all right, but Lilly was looking at a bright red pair of ballet flats made from some weird shiny material that were a size too big for her.

"What are those?" she asked the attendant blankly.

"Your shoes."

"Those are not my shoes. I don't wear a size six." She shook her head stubbornly, pushing the shoes back toward him. "And I was wearing sneakers. Black and white sneakers."

"Sorry, but these were the shoes in the spot where your skates went."

"So, where exactly are my shoes?" Her eyes narrowed.

"Give me a second, let me check the other slots. What size were they?"

"Five-and-a-half." She measured her words carefully, clipping off each syllable, not wanting to get angry. But she had left her phone somewhere and now, her shoes were missing.

Five minutes later, after a supposedly thorough search, he was informing Oliver that their skates were on the house, and he was really sorry, but there were absolutely no women's size five-and-a-half shoes of any kind anywhere.

Lilly laughed at how ridiculous the situation was while Oliver muttered, "I can't believe they gave your shoes to someone else."

"I can't believe someone who came in wearing those shiny flats took my old sneakers," Lilly shot back. The attendant took down her contact information in the event that anyone returned her shoes, and apologized again. He had no idea what happened. He told them that over and over. Lilly gave him a forced smile, then said, "Oliver, help me find my phone?"

"Snack bar?" he asked her, punctuating the question with a sigh.

"Snack bar," she agreed beginning to walk to the aforementioned location wearing only socks on her feet.

The phone was nowhere in the snack bar. Not anywhere around the table they had been sitting, or kicked anywhere else along the floor. The cashier at the counter hadn't seen it, and nothing had been turned in to her. And nothing magically appeared in the hour that the two of them searched in the snack bar or the carpeted pathways surrounding it. As far as Lilly was concerned, that left only one option.

"I must have thrown it away." The words were barely audible and her face was stricken as she processed the thought. Her mother was going to kill her. This phone was supposed to last her the rest of the year. There was a contract. Or something.

"What?" Oliver turned to her. He had just finished an intensive search of the area below the case containing small bags of chips and his hair was looking even more disheveled than usual.

"I must have thrown it away when you went to clean your shirt and I was getting rid of the rest of our food."

Their eyes met and they groaned in unison before walking back up to the register where the teenage girl was trying to clean the popcorn case and close for the night.

"Hi," Oliver smiled as he spoke, leaning a hip against the counter, "I know you're busy, but do you know if the garbage has gone out in the last two hours?"

"About three times," she told him before narrowing her eyes. "You don't think that's where your phone is, do you? Cause I already took the bags out to the dumpster when it started to clear out in here."

Lilly closed her eyes and with a small whimper of dismay asked, "where's your dumpster?"

The dumpster was big. Bigger than Lilly expected. How did an ice rink go through this much garbage in one night? She stood on the mat just outside the back door, eying the gigantic metal blue box. Both of the black flaps on the top were flipped back revealing garbage bags that were spilling up and over the sides. Black bags. White bags. A few cardboard cartons that had obviously contained food products. There was a smell coming from the mound she didn't want to think about. It was just too disgusting for words. She had dug through trash before, but this was... this was about ten times worse than Jackson's room. And she didn't have gloves. Or shoes.

"Stay there," Oliver instructed, stepping up onto one of the edges of the base of the box, stretching his leg up to hook the toe of his sneaker onto a small platform that jutted out from the side. He leaned against the edge and grabbed one of the white bags closest to him, tossing it over the side to Lilly.

"If it helps," the cashier offered before she headed back inside, "we only use white bags in concessions, and it should be in the top..." She flicked her gaze back and forth between the two of them, and her eyes were filled with pity. To Lilly, she added, "Your bag'll be behind the counter. Just don't forget it. When I finish closing, I'll come out and help you look. You don't want to be out here all night." She let the door shut softly behind her.

"She's nice," Lilly mumbled as she untied the bag on the ground by her feet.

Three bags in for Lilly, five for Oliver, and she was ready to give up. Her sleeves were shoved up to her elbows and she was careful to only touch the bags, or their contents, with her hands. She didn't want any of the unidentified items coming into contact with anymore of her than was strictly necessary. It was one thing to push aside old candy wrappers, it was quite another to have an unnamed liquid slipping along your skin. "I'll just tell my mom I lost it."

"Lilly, that'll be the third phone you've lost in the last year. She'll kill you." He scrunched up his nose as something slimy slid out of the bag he had just opened. "And I happen to like you breathing."

A smile crossed her face despite the gunk that she could feel beneath her finger nails, and she told him, "I like you breathing too, which is why we can't miss curfew."

"We've got a couple of hours before we have to be in the driveway. It'll be fine." Oliver tossed another white bag in her direction, and she dug in.

The top layer of the dumpster didn't yield any cell phone though. They'd found a few retainers, but Lilly put them right back where she found them. Somehow, she didn't think anyone was going to want them back.

"This is impossible," she groaned, trying to stretch out the kinks developing in her muscles from the repeated sifting and tying. She was getting tired, and it was getting late.

The frustration was starting to show on Oliver's face as well. He just grunted in response and opened another plastic bag.

The soft squeak of the hinges behind her let Lilly know the back door was opening again.

"Um, you guys can stop looking," came the voice of the cashier as she stepped out into the night air.

"What?" Oliver asked flatly.

"The zamboni driver found your phone." She must have seen how wide Lilly's eyes got from that statement because she hurriedly added, "It's fine! He saw it before he went over it. Don't worry!"

"You're kidding, right? We looked through all of that," Lilly gestured to the pile of white bags on the asphalt, "and it was on the ice the whole time?"

"It probably fell out of your bag or your pocket or something while you were skating," the other girl offered, nervously tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Don't worry about the garbage. Somebody else will pick it up. Just come on in and uh, wash your hands."

Lilly and Oliver must have spent a good ten minutes in the kitchen of the snack bar, side by side at a stainless steel sink, rubbing their hands and arms raw with the soap and water. She let out a heavy breath as she lathered her hands up for the third time, and he sniffed his palms experimentally to make sure the smell of greasy food and sweat was gone from his skin. Every time Lilly opened her mouth to say something to him, she shut it again with a snap. She didn't know what to say. There was no way she could thank him enough for standing on the edge of a dumpster for her, or apologize enough because he felt the need to do it in the first place.

When they were safely in the car away from the ice and the snack bar waste, she finally voiced her thoughts.

"Thank you, for you know..." It wasn't very elegant, but it got the point out there.

He nodded his head stiffly, letting a few strands of hair fall into his face. "Anytime."

"Well, hopefully, not anytime real soon," she joked and he just gave her a thin smile.

As he started the engine, they both let out another simultaneous groan at the time on the dashboard clock.

"We are so dead," Oliver muttered to himself.

"I'll call my mom and let her know we might be late. No big deal." She dialed while Oliver started driving. "Where are you going?" she asked, noticing the car turning in a different direction from the one they came in.

"The highway. It'll be faster."

Lilly nodded and waited for the ringing to stop so she could tell her mom. Sometimes, she hated that her curfew was earlier than Oliver's. Only by thirty minutes, but still. It made her feel even younger than him. The voice mail connected on Heather's line, and Lilly frowned. Hopefully, her mom checked her messages soon. She started to leave a quick message letting her mom know that everything was fine, but they had some minor issues and would be running late. That's when the traffic came to a standstill. She looked around her, hesitating in her explanation, seeing people rocking out in the car next to them, waving tee shirts around, bright purple liner around their eyes as music blared from the stereo. It was pretty much the picture all around them, and they were stuck between two exists, no where to go.

"Um," she added into the phone, "we're kind of stuck in traffic. I don't know where all of these people came from. I'll try to be on time, but, uh, it looks like we might be stuck a while." She disconnected, throwing the phone into her bag, making sure it landed there this time, and leaned back in the seat to wait. Oliver's jaw set as a horn behind them blared, and he propped his chin up with the hand resting on the door. It was going to be a long ride home.

As Oliver pulled into his driveway much later, Lilly was relieved to see the lights at her house were off. Maybe that meant she wouldn't get in too much trouble. Besides, she was only 40 minutes late. It wasn't like she was strolling in with the sunrise or anything. Neither of them said anything as they unbuckled seatbelts and opened car doors. Lilly turned to Oliver, intent on telling him how much fun she had, even with the liberal dose of crazy thrown over their first date, but she shut her mouth when she saw how drained Oliver looked. He was a little pale, a little drawn, and possibly a little relieved for the night to be coming to an end. He didn't look like he had a good time at all. In fact, he looked like he couldn't wait to get away from her. She sighed, opening her mouth again, but there was a slam from behind her and her mother's voice hit her like freezing rain.

"Where have you been? Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"I left you a message. We got stuck in traffic." Lilly didn't really want to explain again, but she could see she didn't have much of a choice now.

"Traffic?" Heather scoffed. "You shouldn't have been far enough away that traffic made that much of a difference." She then rounded on Oliver. "Just where did you take my daughter?"

"Mom!"

"Ice skating," he said softly. "I'm sorry. It was all my fault. I tried to take a short cut, but I guess there was a concert or something because we got stuck and-"

"Where are your shoes?" Heather interrupted, directing the question back at her daughter.

"The guy at the rink, he gave them to the wrong girl."

"Unbelievable," Heather muttered. "Let's go, in the house."

"But I-"

"Lillian!"

"Good night, Oliver."

"Night, Lilly."

After trudging into the house, her mother close behind her, Lilly spent the next forty minutes in the living room getting lectured instead of in her bed falling asleep, where, according to her curfew, she was supposed to be. The lecture made the rounds from respecting your mother, to the dangers of late night driving, to obeying rules, to the importance of a good night's sleep, to getting a good education, to what teenage boys wanted from teenage girls, to why girls shouldn't be best friends with boys, to being "safe," and then she couldn't take it anymore.

"Mom! It's late, and I have school tomorrow, remember? I'm going to bed. You can yell at me in the morning!" With that, she jumped off the couch where Heather had stationed her and sped up the stairs.

"Fine! But you come straight home from school all this week! I don't want you going anywhere else!"

She skipped all of her usual night time rituals, too annoyed to care if she woke up with smudged eyeliner on her sheets or if she wasted too much time finding something to wear in the morning. She was glad that she had scrubbed her hands and arms within an inch of her life at the rink. At least she knew she wasn't taking garbage to bed with her. Lilly shed her jeans and top, leaving them in a pile on the floor in front of her closet, for once not caring about the mess, and she wrenched an old Sea View High tee from a hanger, throwing it on, feeling the thin cotton reach half way down her thighs. Using her toes to peel off her well worn socks, she almost tripped over her own feet. She crawled into bed, wishing she could text Oliver a quick message, wanting to know how things went with his parents, if he got into as much trouble as she did, but her phone was downstairs with her mom. Instead, she squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself to fall asleep.

But she couldn't. Sleep wouldn't come. Her body was exhausted, but her brain refused to shut down. She was too keyed up. It was like she had downed a pot of coffee or something. Scenes kept playing through her mind like a movie montage whether her eyes were open or not.

Lilly laid in bed, just staring at the ceiling. This was one of the weirdest nights ever. Between her sore feet, the stolen shoes, the nacho cheese, the cell phone, and then missing her curfew, it should have been the worst date ever. She should have been thinking about how it was a horrible night, and she should just get over the guy, not go out with him again. All the signs pointed to no. Catastrophe usually meant the fates were trying to tell you something. And yet... and yet, everything in her pointed to yes. Oliver had helped her look through bags of garbage to find her phone. He had picked her up every time she fell on the ice. He had tried to get her home on time, even tried to explain to her mother that it was his fault, not hers, that they missed curfew, even though that wasn't entirely true. He had done everything right. Everything.

So why did he look so far away at the end of the night?

A slight scraping sound coming from her window made her sit up, yanking her sheets up to her chest. The glass panel slowly slid open, and a head of brown hair appeared between her curtains, followed by a pair of shoulders, and then he was tumbling to the floor without making more than a whisper of noise.

"Are you crazy?" Lilly hissed.

"What?" Oliver returned, "Like you're the only one allowed to climb through windows?" Lilly had, on more than one occasion, climbed out her window and into his, but he had always cautioned her against it, telling her it was too dangerous. She had never thought she would see him sneaking though hers.

"What if you fell?!" It seemed that this time Lilly was aware of just how dangerous finding hand holds on the drain pipe and flimsy trellis could be.

"Eh, I'm fine."

He took a few steps closer to her bed in the darkness, peering to the edge of the room to ensure her door was closed before he walked over the rest of the way. He had already changed out of his clothes as well, now clad in a loose pair of sweat pants and a Batman tee shirt. Both black. Excellent for climbing the sides of buildings in the middle of the night.

"What are you doing here?" she whispered, not entirely positive she was awake right now. She clutched her sheets tighter in her hands, holding them against her chest.

Oliver stood just at the side of the mattress, close enough to be able to actually see the expression on her face now. She looked... nervous.

"I couldn't sleep, and I wanted... I wanted to say I was sorry. Tonight was a disaster, and I really wanted it to be perfect." He fidgeted with the bottom of his shirt while he spoke, feeling a little out of place. He couldn't remember the last time he had been in Lilly's room in the middle of the night. She was usually at his house. Or they were at Miley's house. They didn't spend a whole lot of time at hers. Probably cause Heather Truscott never seemed to really trust him, and even less so recently. If the universe was really against him as he was beginning to think, chances are she was going to be banning him from the house pretty soon.

"Oliver, it wasn't a disaster." Lilly swiped her hair back from her face, her posture relaxing, not clutching the sheets as tightly with her other hand.

"Yes, it was."

"No-"

"I got a ticket, your skates didn't fit, someone stole your shoes, the garbage and the phone, the cheese, you getting in trouble too... It sucked." He started pacing, realizing just how truly horrible the evening must have been. He had been worried before, but now that he was actually voicing everything that happened... She was just being nice.

"Ollie," Lilly cut him off, using the nickname she'd had for him since they were four that he always acted like he hated, "I had a really good time, even with all of that."

Oliver didn't appear to have heard what she said, continuing the pacing. "I want a do-over. I don't want this to count against me."

The harshness of his whispered tones was getting louder and a bit more desperate, and the pacing made spots on the floorboards squeak every so often, and Lilly realized he was beyond listening. She jumped out of bed, planting herself in his pacing path, and stood her ground.

"You have to stop pacing. My mom will hear you." Her voice was barely a whisper, but this time Oliver noticed. His eyes were bright, even in the darkness, staring into her own. "I don't need a do-over. Tonight was fun."

"It was?"

"Yes. It was the best first date ever."

"You don't want a do-ever?" He was genuinely confused by this turn of events, so sure that the evening had been awful for Lilly and wanting to make it up to her. But she had said it was the best. That couldn't be right. How bad had her first dates been before?

"I don't need one, but... if you want to start over, that's okay with me. We can try again." She smiled encouragingly at him. They could have a hundred first dates for all she cared, as long as they all ended with the two of them agreeing to go out again. That was the only thing that mattered.

"Okay, cause I'm thinking something simpler. With less interaction with other people. Maybe we go see a movie?" Oliver asked, his hands held firmly at his sides, not wanting to reach out to touch her when they were alone in her bedroom in the dark. The temptation there would be too great. And this wasn't even a date anymore. Technically. It would be wrong.

Lilly rolled her eyes and smiled. "You know I love seeing movies with you... But we should probably skip the nachos."

He gave a soft laugh at that, relieved that she had agreed, and he finally let his eyes take her in, all of her, and his throat went dry.

"You aren't wearing any pants," he choked out.

"Yeah... I just put on an old shirt and went to bed after my mom yelled at me," Lilly muttered with warm cheeks, wondering why everyone always felt the need to comment on her wardrobe, then pulling self consciously at the sides of the shirt, knowing it was so long that he couldn't actually see anything inappropriate, but feeling naked all the same. "I wasn't you know, expecting..."

Oliver nodded his head and struggled to bring his eyes back up from her legs to her face. The action was a lot more difficult than it would have been in the daylight. Sweat began to gather at his hairline and he rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

"I should go home. I just, um, I wanted to-"

"I know." She smiled shyly up at him before looking down at her carpet.

"Right. Okay. Uh, good night, then." Oliver spun around, heading back to the window, but Lilly was suddenly right next to him, stopping him.

"That's it?"

"What do you mean?"

"You risked breaking a leg just to get me to agree to a do-over? You were here for like, thirty seconds!" Lilly stepped closer to him as she spoke, invading his personal space.

Oliver swallowed nervously before answering. "I don't want to get you in trouble."

"I'm already grounded for the week, and you're probably going to be in trouble for the ticket anyway..." she started to say casually, her eyes drifting away from him.

"Yeah?" Oliver asked, not following where she was going with this.

"You could just stay. Here. With me." The words came out haltingly, but she wasn't sure if she had planned on saying them or not. She couldn't take them back now. If she had shoes on, the tips would have been scuffing along the carpet apprehensively as the words left her mouth. As it was, her toes were curled under as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, her toenails scraping along the rough carpet.

"Lils," he breathed, "I don't know if that's a good idea."

"But-" she started to protest, the excuse that they'd stayed in the same room before, that she sneaked over and spent the night at his house before, ready on the tip of her tongue, but logically, she knew this was nowhere near being the same thing. They had never been a couple any of those other times. In fact, most of the times had even been prior to puberty. She had also been fully clothed all of those times.

Minor details, really.

"We can't go breaking all the rules in one night," he teased her.

"I know," Lilly laughed quietly, "I just thought-"

But Oliver cut her off by placing his lips over hers. He slid his mouth along hers slowly, his hands reaching up to cup her face as she took another step closer to him. The palms of her hands braced against his chest and, standing on her toes, she leaned into him, not wanting the kiss to end. When he pulled back, he explained raggedly, "It's not because I don't want to or because I'm scared to get caught, but 'cause I really, really, want to stay. Really."

Lilly nodded in a daze and let him hook one leg over the window sill to prepare to leave. When she recovered herself, she managed to mutter, "that was another broken rule. I don't kiss on the first date, remember?"

"Good thing this wasn't a first date, then," Oliver teased.

Just as he was ready to climb down, she grabbed one of his arms, leaning down to whisper in his ear, "just so you know, in case you change your mind, I haven't locked my window since we were 12."

"Me either." Oliver smiled widely before pressing another kiss to the corner of her mouth and heading home.

Just eight days later, after their respective punishments were lifted, Oliver got his do-over date. They got kicked out of the movie theater, but neither of them minded much.


End file.
